'Venom' director's Hollywood path began when he saw 'Batman' as a teenager

Michael CavnaThe Washington Post

For filmmaker Ruben Fleischer, pop-culture experiences are closely tethered to a sense of place. And Washington was where his dream of making superhero movies began.

Fleischer realizes a boyhood hope today, with the official opening of his first comic-book movie, "Venom," Sony's $100 million attempt to build out its Spider-Man cinematic universe. The film, which reaped an impressive $10 million from Thursday-night screenings, is expected to gross more than $55 million in its domestic debut, potentially setting an October record.

Yet just days before its release, Fleischer can't help but reflect on the past - on the time and terrain that launched him toward Hollywood.

The director grew up in Washington, D.C., in the 1980s, in the Chevy Chase neighborhood, when Christopher Reeve's Superman movies sparked a wave of Spandex adaptations. For Fleischer, the Richard Donner-led franchise fueled his imagination. When those films arrived, he tells The Washington Post, "I remember dressing up as Superman and living out that fantasy."

Fleischer attended Lafayette Elementary and then Georgetown Day School, which was one of the area's first integrated private schools - and distinct, he says, from the nearby prep schools, such as where Supreme Court nominee BrettKavanaugh attended. "I have to say, hearing all the conversations," Fleischer says of current headlines, "it does sound very familiar - that culture of certain prep schools."

(Fleischer still has family in Washington, and return trips cause him to be struck by just how different Washington is now: "It's incredible how much the city has changed" since the '80s.)

And it was in 1989, while at Georgetown Day, that Fleischer was moved by one of the year's biggest movies. "What really got me was Tim Burton's 'Batman," says the "Gangster Squad" director. "I was in high school, and I remember seeing the posters with the Batman symbol all over town. I was intrigued.

"And then, upon seeing the movie - the dark tone of that film, the incredible production design and the great action, and (Jack) Nicholson's portrayal of the Joker and Michael Keaton's portrayal of Batman - that movie was probably the most significant in terms of my connection and desire to make a superhero movie one day itself."

Yet his route would be roundabout. He left to study history at Wesleyan University - despite its esteemed film program - and a visit out West led him to falling in love with San Francisco. After school, he moved to the Bay Area and found early internet-startup work in the '90s before business took him to Los Angeles. When his employer shuttered, he says, he moved into TV production, becoming an assistant on "Dawson's Creek," in which he would meet future "Venom" actress Michelle Williams.

Working closely with such directors as Mike White and Miguel Arteta put Fleischer on a path to making his own music videos, commercials and short films, until 2009 brought his surprise-hit feature debut "Zombieland," starring future Spider-Man universe actor Woody Harrelson.

It would be nearly a decade before Fleischer would get to release a comic-book movie. Yet "Venom" - about an alien symbiote that brings costly superpowers to its host, the down-on-his-luck journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) - would allow Fleischer to tap so many of his influences.

Those include the setting. "Venom" is lovingly soaked in San Francisco's bay vistas and colorful neighborhoods, and Fleischer says getting to shoot a big action movie there was "very satisfying."

Also inspiring were some of his favorite '80s films. Fleischer says "Venom" nods to buddy comedies like "48 Hours" and "Midnight Run," as Eddie wages an ongoing, amusing war of words with his parasite.

Yet this dark body-takeover comedy within a superhero adventure pays direct homage to a film in a similar narrative vein: 1981's "An American Werewolf in London." "For me, that was the biggest influence in my movie," says Fleischer, whose "Venom" features its own strong dose of bloody, befanged carnage.

And central to "Venom," the director says, is how to mine the host-parasite relationship for black humor.

"They forge a real friendship, and, ultimately, they decide to work together through that journey," he says. "They go on and learn to like each other."

Three decades after watching "Batman" in a Washington theater sparked his superhero-cinema dreams, Fleischer says, fulfilling them was "extremely gratifying - it was good to get to make 'Venom' the way I made it."